A suspect with an open felony arrest warrant is suspected of breeding puppies on Skid Row where 14 emaciated, abused dogs were rescued this week

The puppies were sick, emaciated, crowded in a cage that acted as a makeshift puppy mill on Skid Row. Their owner was a wanted man with an open arrest warrant.

This week, the dogs were saved by the LAPD, and the man who was breeding them was taken into custody in connection with the warrant, and could face additional animal cruelty charges. This “unlawful puppy mill,” as members of the LAPD Heavy Metal Task Force, a unit which typically investigates metal and copper wire thefts across the city, called it, was discovered while officers were conducting an operation at a homeless encampment.

The rescued pups were “booked as evidence, and will receive necessary medical treatment,” the LAPD says.

Animal activists have been apoplectic for years now about animal abuse on Skid Row, where dogs in particular are subjected to unimaginable inhumanity: being used as test subjects by IV drug abusers; starved; left without food and water in sweltering cages. Their outrage has finally been met with action from city officials, with Mayor Karen Bass announcing this month that she is ordering increased enforcement in the area.

Bass’ new initiative was announced after renowned animal activist Rebecca Corry demanded a meeting with the Mayor, whom she threatened to sue if the city didn’t take action to protect the wildly abused animals living in squalor. Bass said she has asked the LAPD and Los Angeles Animal Services to team up for a pilot enforcement unit that launched on Skid Row last week. Corry, the founder of the Stand Up for Pits Foundation, said the city was unrepentant in its “violations of state laws concerning animal welfare, transparency, and cruelty enforcement” at city-run shelters and on Skid Row.

That threat was delivered in late September. Bass announced she was taking action on November 6, saying that she is still dedicated to allowing the city’s homeless to keep their pets “whenever possible,” while also “holding those who commit crimes of animal cruelty and neglect accountable.”

Corry said puppies are being sold on Skid Row to support drug habits. “We’re not just here yelling like crazy animal people. We had to use our own money to save dogs that shouldn’t be there to begin with.”

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